To Leave or To Stay
by starflyergirl
Summary: One-shot. Anakin's thoughts right after Ahsoka leaves the Jedi Order.


Anakin Skywalker slowly walked back to the council room. At once he felt very old and very tired. The entire world seemed to be crashing down on him at once. He took a second and looked back through the foyer to the open evening air and setting sun. Moments ago, he had watched his friend and student walk off into that sunset.

And while he had begged with her to stay, reminding her that the Jedi order was her life and that to give up on it was to throw everything away, Ahsoka Tano had turned her back on it all. And now Anakin thought as if his words were the final measure that broke her will.

It wasn't that he had lied, but that he had told the complete truth. Ahsoka had given her heart and soul to the Jedi and for that matter so had Anakin and his longtime friend Obi-Wan Kenobi. He remembered the day that Satine had died in Obi-Wan's arms, just another casualty of this pointless war. She was the only girl who Obi-Wan had ever truly loved, but yet he never once even hugged her. Such displays of affection were forbidden for a Jedi.

Ahsoka, as far as Anakin knew, was too young to fall love, but that did not mean she had not sacrificed much to be a Jedi. She had spent countless hours studying late at night and had risked her life countless times on the battlefield fighting by his side.

And yet the council had not once acknowledged any of them for what they gave to the order. An act of tremendous bravery and love, such as taking a bullet for a friend, was not seen as an act of heroism. In the Jedi order, life was not cherished and love was not a value. Living was not laughing with friends or falling in love, for a Jedi it was nothing but the force.

And this was why Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Anakin had never really belonged. The three of them saw so much more to life than just the force. They saw each other as family and the clone troopers as the closest of friends. Each battle was not just some statistic but a trial and an obstacle that could only be tackled with the help of those you trusted most.

And after so many years of fighting they had all grown to trust each other with their lives. But trust was a foreign concept to most Jedi. So when the council had falsely accused Ahsoka of treason, they did not trust her word and they refused to look back at all she had given to the order. To make matters even worse, when she was proven innocent, the council did not offer an apology or a warm welcome back into the order. Mace Window simply said matter-of-factly that no one could know "the mysterious ways of the force," and that she was no longer banned.

Anakin could not blame her for walking out. If the order kept on suppressing love and compassion, discouraging trust, and giving nothing back to those who risked their lives to defend it, maybe starting completely over with nothing offered a more fulfilling life than continuing with the order. Perhaps, he thought, he should leave too. It would be so easy to just stroll into that council room, give his lightsaber and words of goodwill to Obi-Wan, and then leave this life behind.

He would then run out to the deck, grab a taxi, and fly straight away to Padme's apartment. He would lift her off the ground and hold her ever so closely, for the first time without fearing that someone would see them. They could live together as a normal husband and wife, instead of dwelling in the deception and secrecy made necessary by the Jedi's no attachment, no compassion rule. How nice it would be to be able to call her his wife and to take her out to dinner every once in awhile!

But as he thought these happy thoughts, Anakin realized that such dreams would never come true. His marriage would always be forbidden and he will always be afraid to hug his wife. He simply could not bring himself to leave the order.

He could not be so cruel to Obi-Wan, forcing him to say goodbye to his two closest friends within a week of Satine's death. It would crush his heart. And then there was the 501st, the battalion of troopers that Anakin had lead into battle for the past three years. Together they had been through more than one can imagine, facing death and all of the horrors of war on a daily basis. He could not simply hand his men over to some unfeeling Jedi general, who would no doubt view them as a mere tool of war.

And then there was the war itself. As a Jedi and powerful force-user, Anakin knew that he could save many lives by fighting out on the front lines. He simply would not be able to live with himself knowing that people were dying while he sat in some apartment.


End file.
